Do you remember the Boston Dynamics robots videos of just a few years ago? It was a big deal that robots like Atlas could walk on (gasp!) uneven ground. But Atlas keeps blowing through milestones left and right, like in this new video that shows Atlas effortlessly jumping over obstacles and hopping onto boxes like…
I’ve never been able to quite figure out why I hate snakes, but my disdain of slithering serpents extends to the robot variety as well. I’m sure part of it comes from the way they wriggle and writhe to get around; it just freaks me out. But at the same time, I’m also impressed that robotics researchers have taught robo…
Rubik’s Cube-solving robots are far from a new idea. In fact, while the human record holder can solve a cube in just 4.22 seconds, the fastest cube-solving robot does it in a little over half a second. This robot isn’t quite as fast, but it’s ability to quickly solve a Rubik’s Cube using just one three-fingered hand…
It’s been a few years since Japan’s AIST updated its HRP humanoid robot line. While the last iteration, HRP-4C, strived to make the robot seem as human as possible with a realistic female head, the new industrial-looking HRP-5P looks like it escaped the factory before its bodywork was finished. It’s not pretty, but…
The Earth does not forget. Meteor impacts, nuclear detonations, Ice Ages, earthquakes: The memories of them all are imprinted in the muck at the bottom of the ocean.
Scientists in the UK and Sweden believe they’ve come across an unprecedented advance in Alzheimer’s disease research: A method of developing new drugs that can target the roots of the fatal disease in a way that previous attempts couldn’t. But while the latest published work is genuinely intriguing, outside experts…
By now we’ve got lots of worrying examples of how AI-powered image processing software can flawlessly alter faces, or make someone appear to say something they didn’t. But there are other, perhaps under-explored uses for this technology: like trying to fake a video of you dancing so it looks like you’ve got Bruno…
Physicians who get paid extra by pharmaceutical and medical device companies often aren’t forthcoming about the money in their research papers, according to a study out Wednesday in JAMA Surgery. It found that many of the doctors who receive the most in industry payments only occasionally disclose their potential…
One of the most famous charity organizations in the world—the March of Dimes—has suddenly become much less charitable to the scientific causes it funded. The organization has canceled research grants totaling $3 million that it had already awarded to dozens of scientists, Nature reported Friday.
An instructor of mine once compared mixing a song to baking a cake. The various tracks are the ingredients, and once everything is mixed and baked, as with a cake, those ingredients can’t be deconstructed. Or can they? AI researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory have created an app…
When it comes to groundbreaking research, there are two fields that seem to occupy the newscycle: carbon nanotubes and artificial intelligence. The potential combination of those two fields of study seems like it could radically change the word as we know it, or, as South Korean scientists have discovered, at least…
One of the hardest video effects to fake is slow motion. It requires software to stretch out a clip by creating hundreds of non-existent in-between frames, and the results are often stuttered and unconvincing. But taking advantage of the incredible image-processing potential of deep learning, Nvidia has come up with a…
The information age has generated far more data than humanity can ever hope to manually process, but with the help of artificial intelligence, that avalanche of data is now revealing itself to be far more useful than we ever thought possible. The omnipresent wireless signals that keep us connected can now be used like…
Replicating the complicated muscle structure that allows fish to wiggle their bodies and dart through the water is no easy feat. But not every underwater creature moves that way. Cuttlefish instead use long fins that undulate in waves to propel themselves, which is an approach that robotics maker Festo found…
The National Institutes of Health has taken a whole lot of heat for allegedly cozying up to Big Alcohol in order to secure funding for a major study on the effects of having a daily drink. On Friday, the NIH lost one of its backers from the booze business, as brewing giant Anheuser-Busch InBev pulled funding from the…
Researchers are teaching machines to get stuff done using video simulations, a database of chores, and a virtual home reminiscent of your favorite time-wasting video game. The end goal? Teaching robots the same way you teach yourself how to install a toilet: instructional videos.
The technical skills of programmer John Carmack helped create the 3D world of Doom, the first-person shooter that took over the world 25 years ago. But it was level designers like John Romero and American McGee that made the game fun to play. Level designers that, today, might find their jobs threatened by the …
An eye blink is over in less than a second, which means you can’t possibly be missing much while your eyes are closed, right? But it’s estimated that humans can blink over 28,000 times a day, and as much as 10 percent of our time awake is spent with our eyes closed. So it turns out you’re actually missing a lot by…
The walls of your house keep the roof up, give your family some privacy, and maybe provide a place to hang some art. But researchers at Disney and Carnegie Mellon University have come up with a way for walls to do more. A cheap paint treatment turns them into giant sensors, creating new ways to interact with a smart…
Virtual reality headsets today use your eyes and ears to make simulated experiences seem more real, but what about your other senses? Researchers at Stanford University have come up with a way for your hands and fingers to feel virtual objects with a unique robot that looks like an animated version of those Pin Art…
